Fed Governor Christopher Waller said over the weekend, “we’re at a point we can start thinking maybe of going to a slower pace,” but “we’re not softening”.

“Quit paying attention to the pace and start paying attention to where the endpoint is going to be,” he urged. “Until we get inflation down, that endpoint is still a ways out there.”

Last week’s CPI report was “good, finally, that we saw some evidence of inflation starting to come down, but I just cannot stress [enough] this is one data point. We’re going to need to see a continued run of this kind of behavior and inflation slowly starting to come down, before we really start thinking about taking our foot off the brakes here,” he said.

Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester yesterday’s October CPI report “suggests some easing in overall and core inflation.” However, “there continue to be some upside risks to the inflation forecast.” She expects to see a “meaningful” decrease in inflationary pressures next year and after, with CPI back to 2% target by 2025.

“Given the current level of inflation, its broad-based nature, and its persistence, I believe monetary policy will need to become more restrictive and remain restrictive for a while in order to put inflation on a sustainable downward path to 2%,” she said.

“Despite the moves we have made so far, given that inflation has consistently proven to be more persistent than expected and there are significant costs of continued high inflation, I currently view the larger risks as coming from tightening too little.”

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said yesterday that the slowdown in inflation was “goods news”. Yet, “one month does not a victory make.”

“We have to be resolute to bring inflation down; we’re united in that commitment,” she said. “It’s raising the rate and then holding it for a length of time that is sufficient to bring inflation reliably back to 2%.”

“I would rather move a little bit higher and have to come back then to move a little bit less high and to then tell people we’re going to go higher, because at some point it does seep into inflation expectations,” Daly said.

At the same time, she said, “I don’t want to be over tightening to the point where we throw the economy into a sharp recession, but if we are talking about a rate hike on either side, I want to fully get inflation sustainably down to 2% on average.”

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said “This morning’s CPI data were a welcome relief, but there is still a long way to go.”

“I believe it may soon be appropriate to slow the pace of rate increases so we can better assess how financial and economic conditions are evolving,” she added.

Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said, “In the upcoming months, in light of the cumulative tightening we have achieved, I expect we will slow the pace of our rate hikes as we approach a sufficiently restrictive stance.”

He added, “at some point next year, I expect we will hold at a restrictive rate for a while to let monetary policy do its work”. What happened after there will be driven by data. “If we have to, we can always tighten further, based on the data.”

“What we really need to see is a sustained decline in a number of inflation indicators before we let up on tightening monetary policy,” he said, adding “we need to make sure inflation expectations don’t become unanchored.”